Posts tagged with "Pennsylvania":

Officials in Pennsylvania are planning a science center that features a nature dome, virtual reality whitewater rafting, and an 100-foot-wide exterior rendering of Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. San Francisco's EHDD is designing the facility.

West Coast readers may be familiar with EHDD through its work on the Exploratorium, a science museum in San Francisco. Its latest project has many similar elements: In addition to its whiz-bang features, the Da Vinci Science Center in Easton, Pennsylvania will have exhibits on plants and animals native to the Lehigh Valley. There will also be a permanent exhibit on da Vinci that explores how the Renaissance polymath's work influences the mission of the namesake museum.

A 400-seat theater, an observatory on the roof, a weather station, a indoor skydiving simulation, and a zoo component round out the program.

Outside in the garden, The Morning Callreported that visitors will be able to lounge near a 12-foot-tall replica of Leonardo’s Horse, the sculpture da Vinci completed for the Duke of Milan in 1482.

While the project timeline is still being finalized, construction on the $130 million is slated to begin in 2019 or 2020.

2017 Best of Design Award for Lighting - Outdoor: Longwood Gardens Renovation
Lighting Designer: L'Observatoire InternationalLocation: Kennett Square, Pennsylvania
Longwood Gardens is one of the premier horticultural display gardens in the United States, comprising 1,077 acres of gardens, woodlands, and meadows. The firm’s goal was to subtly enhance and shape the visitor’s experience by concealing light fixtures and using small LED light sources when possible. The lighting reveals the garden architecture and fountains at night, leading the eye toward the spectacle of the grand fountains and strategically spotlit garden features without drawing attention to itself.
The firm created a varied lighting scheme that gives an overview of the fountain garden as a tableau, while simultaneously creating an intimate space within the garden to reveal pathways, lawns, and fountain areas up close. The system ties the garden to natural cycles, lunar and seasonal, so that the lighting schemes evolve in parallel with the seasons—offering a rich experience for visitors.
“The lighting design illuminates the formal garden, creating an evocative ambience and a wonderful medium for enhancing the nighttime experience.” —Emily Bauer, Landscape Architect, Bjarke Ingels Group (juror)Architect:Beyer Blinder BelleLandscape Architect:West 8Water Feature Designer:Fluidity Design ConsultantsWater Feature design-build contractor:Crystal FountainsLight fixtures:Winona LightingHonorable MentionProject name:
University of Iowa, Hancher Auditorium
Lighting Designer:
Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting DesignLocation: Iowa City, Iowa
University of Iowa campus regulations prohibited exterior floodlighting on the auditorium. The firm addressed this challenge with custom downlights with dropped glass lenses illuminating the wood ceiling and defining the building’s form. The arrangement of these fixtures resembles a magical, modern marquee.
Honorable MentionProject name:
City Point Mall
Lighting Designer:Focus LightingLocation:
Brooklyn, New York
A balance of cool and warm tones on City Point’s exterior creates an elegant beacon of light that pulls Brooklyn shoppers off the street and into the building. This lighting scheme was specifically designed to highlight and offset the building’s wood and terra-cotta façade.

Even architects enjoy going to camp, particularly when it involves sleeping in thoughtfully-designed cabins. Such is the case for students of the Fallingwater Institute summer residency programs at High Meadow, the historic farm neighboring Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Fallingwater house. Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania–based firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson recently completed four new residences at High Meadow, adding to an existing 1960s cabin on the site and doubling the capacity of the summer programs.
The Fallingwater Institute summer residency programs allow students and educators of architecture, art, and design to study Frank Lloyd Wright at one of his most recognized works, learning about the relationship between architecture and nature in the process.
The new dwellings differ greatly from the design originally proposed by competition-winners Patkau Architects in 2010; that scheme would've burrowed the residences into the hillside. Instead, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson chose to expand the footprint of the existing cabin and perch the new dwellings on steel columns atop the hillside. The Norway Spruce used for the horizontal screen running along the complex’s exterior hallways was also harvested and milled on site.
"The building's main entry welcomes visitors into a central screened porch, which joins the new architecture to an existing cabin and serves as the outdoor gathering and dining space," said Bill James, project architect from the firm's Pittsburgh office, in a press release. On the interior, the finishes of the residences are durable but minimal to add “a sparse elegance to the space,” the firm stated. Each dwelling features a desk and two twin beds with a full bathroom and closet storage.
The project has been recognized by the AIA Pennsylvania chapter, receiving its highest honor, the 2016 AIA Pennsylvania Silver Medal. The jury stated that the building’s contrast to its surroundings made it a “graceful addition to the existing structure.”
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson was also responsible for the adaptive reuse of the Barn at Fallingwater in 2006, a project that turned the 1870s barn into educational and event space for the Fallingwater property.
For more information about the Fallingwater Institute and their residency programs, visit their website here.

The Architect’s Newspaper (AN)’s inaugural 2013Best of Design Awards featured six categories. Since then, it's grown to 26 exciting categories. As in years past, jury members (Erik Verboon, Claire Weisz, Karen Stonely, Christopher Leong, Adrianne Weremchuk, and AN’s Matt Shaw) were picked for their expertise and high regard in the design community. They based their judgments on evidence of innovation, creative use of new technology, sustainability, strength of presentation, and, most importantly, great design. We want to thank everyone for their continued support and eagerness to submit their work to the Best of Design Awards. We are already looking forward to growing next year’s coverage for you.

Architectural Lighting > Outdoor: SteelStacks Campus

Lighting Design: L'Observatoire International
Location: Bethlehem, PA

The SteelStacks campus turns the former Bethlehem Steel Plant into a dynamic arts and cultural campus with a community center. Highlighting the history of the area, L’Observatoire International worked within the 10-acre core of the site to create multiple performance venues, plazas, and parks. The campus is crowned by the Hoover-Mason Trestle, a walkway rehabilitated from a former elevated railway, and features Levitt Pavilion, an angular open-air stage with monumental blast furnaces as a backdrop. The thoughtful attention to detail and theatrical approach to lighting—which illuminates the structure from within and behind to better highlight its volumes—emphasizes the drama of Bethlehem’s industrial heritage.

Sosolimited conceived a dynamic, nature-inspired architectural lighting system that brings the Cedar Kettner Garage to life. Beyond responding to actual lighting conditions in real time, the lighting system includes a user-friendly interface that allows staff to easily change the animations for holidays and events.

Charged with transforming a 1907 landmark bank building into a theater with a new lighting structure, Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design sought to turn the facade into its own marquis. The versatility and precision of the lighting fixture illuminates its architectural details while lending the theater a lustrous presence.

In the unassuming town of Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, Front Studio created a vibrant community library that makes a major visual impact. “Our work is based on the importance of making architecture experiential and memorable so that it fosters a higher level of awareness in people who don’t normally interact with it,” said principal Art Lubetz, who spearheaded the project.

Historically, Sharpsburg is an industrial, blue-collar town—many of its citizens work for the local H.J. Heinz Company. To reflect this heritage and to help stay within the restrictive budget, Lubetz and his team picked industrial elements, like the exterior corrugated metal paneling, concrete flooring, and exposed trusses. Each of the “building blocks” is painted the exact same bright color inside and out so that the interior is clearly communicated to the street. The bold hues make the material palette feel airy and energetic, an appropriate atmosphere for the many children who frequent the space.

Due to its location—just across the way from the community center and near the community garden—the Sharpsburg Library is a major gathering center for the little town. “It’s flexible and adaptable,” said Lubetz. “There’s a dynamic overlap between the old building and the new, the interior and the exterior, and soft and hard surfaces.”

Despite its fragmented appearance on the outside, the volumes connect fluidly on the inside, even enveloping the site’s existing structure (an Indian restaurant) without breaking the flow, making wayfinding within the librarysimple. “The volumes intersect like a piece of sculpture,” said Lubetz. “I like to think that there is an element of art about this place.…I’ve been around long enough to believe that architecture can be art.”

Lubetz and his team also sourced the furniture, which turned out to be a challenge. “It was tricky to find relatively inexpensive stuff that was durable and colorful—like the children’s [Verner] Panton chairs,” Lubetz explained. Front Studio designed a few pieces as well, such as the library’s main desk.

Other playful touches, like the garage door out to the courtyard and the large exterior circular cutouts, not only “bond the site to its environment,”but are meant to evoke positive emotions: “Kids love this place because it’s so vibrant,” said Lubetz. “And people still call me because they saw it driving down the street and it made them smile.”

At first pass, Philadelphia's Elfreth's Alley looks like any other quaint, well-preserved historic street in a typical northeastern U.S. city. Look closer, though, and it'd apparent that the rowhouses are much older than the 19th-century homes found in New York's West Village or Boston's Beacon Hill. That's because Elfreth's Alley welcomed its first residents in 1702: the block-long lane is the oldest continually occupied residential street in the United States. Although the street is afforded protection by its National Historic Landmark status, escalating, ultra-bland development in Philly's historic core means that it, and the surrounding urban fabric, must protect their assets by conceiving of a future that balances site-sensitive private development with public amenities that cater to Philadelphians.

To some, Old City is thought to be bound by the Delaware River to the east, 4th Street to the west, Vine Street to the north, and Walnut Street to the south. The Old City District's definition is narrower, encompassing a 22-block area bounded by Front Street to the east, 6th Street to the west, Florist Street to the north, and Walnut and Dock streets to the south.
The genesis of Vision2026 was a community discussion on development goals that began in January 2015. Traffic studies and user surveys evinced a desire for standard-issue urban features: Quality public space, public transportation access, better bike infrastructure, stores that serve the community's needs (especially a grocery store), and a development vision that encourages new investment without overriding the neighborhood's charm.
The suggestions take a deep dive into specifics. To reduce car traffic, Vision2026 suggests improving bike infrastructure (addressing a lack of bike lanes and inconsistent linkage to the waterfront, for example) concurrently with initiatives to consolidate commercial package delivery, privilege commercial loading access over private parking, and promote the use of car shares.
The population of Old City has grown 16 percent since 2000, and the area needs Complete Streets (streets designed for safe use by pedestrians, cars, and bicycles alike) to enhance the neighborhood's vitality. A proposal for a 2nd Street Station plaza (the 200 block of Market Street) envisions 14-foot sidewalks flanked by an allée-meets-bike lane. The proposal suggests eliminating street lights—a counterintuitive but effective traffic-calming measure—on the 10-foot-wide stretch of road set aside for private cars.

Although the vacancy rate hovers at around ten percent, studies show that, if current trends continue, the area could support an additional 122,000 square feet of retail. More than 1,000 new residential buildings in the district are proposed or currently under construction. Vision2026 echoes Robert Venturi's 1976 master plan for Old City, calling for redevelopment of the area's Victorian commercial and industrial buildings erected between 1840 and 1890.
Eight parks, including the Venturi–designed Welcome Park, are highlighted as spaces to improve and capitalize upon. Activating underused areas around the Benjamin Franklin Bridge is a priority: Proposals include an under-the-overpass market (like New York's Queensboro Bridge, but hopefully more successful) with restaurants and vendors, as well as wayfinding improvements, especially at night, to enhance connectivity between neighborhoods rent by the interstate.
Next steps include beta-testing the ideas via tactical urbanism, temporary bike lanes, and legislative action, through zoning and permitting amendments, to pave the way for concrete improvements.

To most, the words "National Park" provokes images of Yellowstone and Yosemite. The National Park Service (NPS) would like to broaden that image to include historic sites and notable open spaces within U.S. cities.
To celebrate its 100th anniversary, the NPS has partnered with the Washington, D.C.–based The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) to release a new guide to the historic and notable open spaces in Philadelphia.
The project is spearheaded by the Urban Agenda, an initiative within the NPS to make parks accessible and relevant to city dwellers. In addition to highlighting parks, plazas, and gardens, the online What’s Out There Cultural Landscapes Guide has entries for the neighborhoods, museums, homes, schools, and houses of worship that make Philadelphia Philadelphia.
The city's book features over 50 significant sites, which users can filter by type, theme, style, or designer. Each entry has images and a written description of the site design and history.
Among many luminaries, the guide highlights the contributions of nineteenth century garden cemetery designer Philip M. Price, Thomas Holme, inventor of the Philadelphia Plan; and I.M. Pei, Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi, and Denise Scott Brown, 20th century architects who have contributed to Philadelphia's built environment.
The guides build on TCLF's What's Out There database, which contains over 1,900 sites in the U.S. and Canada. Besides National Parks, the guide has information on National Historic Landmarks, National Natural Landmarks, National Heritage Areas, Land and Water Conservation Fund Sites, and National Register of Historic Places landscapes. TCLF already has non-NPS affiliated guides for Chicago, Denver, D.C., and Toronto, and over the next 18 months, the NPS and TCLF will release guides for Boston, New York, and Richmond, Virginia, Next Cityreports.

The Community Design Collaborative (CDC), in partnership with the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC), has selected nine finalists for Play Space, a design competition that challenged designers to create spaces for play at a library, a school, and a recreation center in Philadelphia.
Play Space explored how good design encourages early childhood development and the success of communities on the whole. The two-year initiative is part of CDC's Infill Philadelphia, a program that uses architecture and design to confront community development challenges in Philadelphia and elsewhere.
“The power of play space in the community and its impact on early childhood development is becoming an issue that is facing all cities in the U.S., and for that matter, around the globe,” Beth Miller, executive director of the Community Design Collaborative, said in a statement. “We are thrilled that teams from around the world chose to tackle our design challenge in Philadelphia, bringing different perspectives but working toward the same goal of improving the quality of life for individuals and families.”
Three teams were selected for each competition location. Those nine teams will be vetted again: once by the community and again by the jury at an exhibition in mid-March. In all, 40 teams from five countries and 11 U.S. states applied to be considered.
Take a look below at the three sites and nine finalists:
Site: Blanche A. Nixon/Cobbs Creek Branch LibraryNeighborhood Playbook (Philadelphia)
Team Members:
SALT Design Studio (lead),CH2M HILL, the City University of New York, Ian Smith Design Group, It's All Made Up, Kirk Fromm, design + illustration, PlayHarvest, and SS | Design Details.
Nixon Park (Atlanta)
Team Members:
TSW (lead) and Wesleyan School.
[Pictured at top] Play Structure | Story Structure (Philadelphia)
Team Members:
Ground Reconsidered Landscape Architecture (lead), Designed For Fun, Friends Select School, J R Keller LLC Creative Partnerships, Meliora Environmental Design LLC, and The Parent-Infant Center.
Site: Waterloo Recreation CenterCommunity Gifts (Guelph, Ontario, Canada)
Team Members:
Shift Landscape Architecture (lead) and Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School.
Reclaiming Recreation (Philadelphia, PA)
Team Members:
Ramla Benaissa Architects (lead), Elwyn, and Maser Consulting P.A.
Waterloo Rebosante (Philadelphia)
Team Members: Roofmeadow and StudioLudo (co-leads) and Space for Childhood.
Site: Haverford Bright FuturesBright Futures Chutes and Ladders (Philadelphia)
Team Members:
Meliora Environmental Design (lead),Atkin Olshin Schade Architects, International Consultants, The Parent-Infant Center, and Viridian Landscape Studio.
Co-Play at Haverford Bright Futures (Chicago)
Team Members:
Terry Guen Design Associates (lead), CITYPLAY, Philly Art Center, and Roots First.
Embrace Past Present and Future (Beijing, China)
Team Members:
Studio of Instinct Fabrication (lead) and Red Sun Kindergarten.

In West Philadelphia, a team of developers, planners, and architects are asking one of urbanists' favorite questions: How can a mega-development be made to feel like a neighborhood, and not a bland corporate campus plopped in the middle of the city? Lead developers Wexford Science + Technology and the University City Science Center are spearheading the from-scratch transformation of a former superblock into a sort of mini city within a city.
The developers' suggested new name for University City, uCitySquare, is bland, The Philadelphia Inquirer's Inga Saffron contends, though the master plans may not be. Ayers Saint Gross took the lead on the plan, with Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang as a contributor.
It appears that the project is riding the same trends that developers used to remake Philly's 12th and Market area into a successful mixed-use district.
The uCitySquare master plan would break the 14-acre site into four pieces by restoring 37th and Cuthbert streets, demapped in the urban renewal that transformed the once-dense neighborhood of row houses into growth space for the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel. It suggests moving 37th Street east of its original location, to make traffic and pedestrian flow smoother along the north-south access between Penn and the residential neighborhood of Powelton Village. Stubby Cuthbert Street would be extended east-west, linking Presbyterian Hospital to the Drexel campus.
So far, the uses of two of the four parcels have been set. Drexel commissioned Rogers Partners to build an elementary and a middle school. Project start dates are contingent on budget negotiations with the city's school district.
The first buildings are sprouting. ZGF Architects' 3675 Market will break ground this spring. The bulky glass cube's main tenant is the Cambridge Innovation Center. The Baltimore-based firm is doing a second building at 37th and Warren with solar panels embedded into the facade.
Erdy McHenry will design a mid-rise apartment building with ground-floor retail on Lancaster Avenue that breaks ground this summer.
The developers are committed to making common spaces not boring. The University City Science Center says that there will be a supermarket, wide sidewalks, and underground parking to minimize street space devoted to cars. The master plan calls for Philadelphia-based OLIN to design a public park at the center of the site.
So far, these are good promises that are tempered by the science center's present foray into urbanism: folding chairs and brick pavers along a pedestrian-only stretch of 37th Street that will connect to uCitySquare is intensely uninviting.

Cap and trade agreements are a standard tool in the climate change fight. Philadelphia, in collaboration with an urban design team led by SOM, is getting in on the game.
Recently revised plans for the 30th Street Station and surrounding neighborhoods call for capping 70 acres of Amtrak and SEPTA-owned land, trading the underutilized space for a mixed-use neighborhood, parkland, and three pedestrian bridges across the Schuylkill River, linking University City with Logan Square and Center City.
SOM partnered with Parsons Brinckerhoff, OLIN, and HR&A Advisors on the $5.25 million study. Through citizen input, the design team developed three iterations of the plan, all of which were presented and debated at a December 16th meeting, PlanPhilly reported.
The study reviews land use over 175 acres, 88 of which are owned by Amtrak and SEPTA. The main project partners are Amtrak, Brandywine Realty Trust, Drexel University, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), and SEPTA, along with twelve other stakeholders. Once adopted, the plan will guide the area's development through 2040.
In addition to the capping and bridges, all three plans propose doubling the size of Drexel Park, boardwalks, a river overlook, and a bus terminal.
There will be two more public meetings on the plan in spring and summer 2016.

Philadelphia's South of South Neighborhood Association (SOSNA) Grays Ferry Avenue Triangles Committee is making moves on a new plaza at 23rd Street at South Street. This plaza follows the well-trod path of its predecessors, touting amenities like seating and trees, as well as building South Philly's neighborhood identity and civic pride.
The Grays Ferry Triangle Project, presented at DesignPhiladelphia this month, will convert the area into a pedestrian plaza with cafe seating, a bike docking station, and benches made of local Wissahickon schist. Concentric cobblestone circles will help manage stormwater runoff. Philadelphia's Bergman Associates drafted the plaza design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPWJRNk1SRA
A major feature of this plaza is a seven-foot-wide drinking fountain. Erected by the Women’s Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1901, the fountain provided free drinking water for horses on the top tier and dogs on the lower level. Grays Ferry Avenue Triangles Committee stipulated that in the design there be enough room to sit "campfire style" around the fountain. SOSNA will use the design to solicit funding to implement the project. Consequently, there is no construction timeline in place at this time.

Groundbreaking on the Divine Lorraine, Philadelphia's luxury hotel turned graffiti artist playground, begins this afternoon.
Completed in 1894, Willis G. Hale's 10 story Lorraine Apartments featured state-of-the-art technology (electric lights), and bourgeois amenities (a kitchen staff that cooked for the tenants, eliminating the need for household servants). At the beginning of the 20th century, the apartments were converted into a hotel. The Reverend Jealous Divine bought the structure in 1948, and opened the country's first integrated hotel. Abandoned in 1999, the structure steadily decayed, battered by urban explorers, graffiti artists, and sixteen Philadelphia winters.
Last year, The Architect's Newspaperexplored the property from the ground up with developer Eric Blumenfeld. Blumenfeld plans to turn the $44 million property into a hotel. If the hotel's capsule collection on Instagram is any indication, the Divine Lorraine should receive an extensive aesthetic makeover from the redevelopment team. Philadelphia firm Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT) is spearheading the renovation.